Tampons, particularly those containing cellulosic absorbent material such as cotton or rayon, are generally made by the steps of aligning congruently rectangular layers of absorbent material, compressing these materials to a substantially bullet-shaped configuration of reduced size and then placing them into a tampon insertion tube for subsequent use. When the tampon pledget is in place, fluid uptake tends to swell the compressed pledget and, consequently, remove the compressed configuration.
Tampons made of conventional cellulosic material may slough fibers during use and are preferably wrapped with a fluid pervious outer wrap which prevents the fiber slough. The presence of this outer wrapping also defines the shape distortion possible when the absorbent material in the tampon swells as a result of fluid uptake. This wrap, therefore, effectively defines the surface area available for fluid uptake. As a practical matter, therefore, regardless of the amount of fluid uptake and the swelling that occurs as a result, the absorbent does not clearly return to its original layered state which existed prior to compression.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,212,301 issued to Russell L. Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 3,397,695 issued to Joseph A. Voss and U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,687 issued to Jacob A. Glassman all generally disclose the concept of assembling a tampon made from strips of absorbent material which overlap each other in the approximate center of the strips. In the Voss patent, the tampon pledget when assembled resembles a series of aligned closely spaced tubes which are then compressed to form a series of fins. The Glassman patent teaches a tulip-shaped configuration for the pledget after expansion with the innermost portion of the tulip having a perforated fluid impervious layer. The concept of the Glassman patent relates to a means for utilizing a densified absorbent material which insures expansion upon wettability to form the tulip-shaped configuration. The pledget of this patent, however, requires several distinct layers of differing material along with a complex method of assembly.
The tampon of this application provides a pledget having increased exposed surface area of absorbent material, a containment pocket for the absorbent material, a tapered leading edge for ease of withdrawal and a wrapped surface to present fiber sloughing.